Still here!

Family picture in front of the marina in Ludington

Look at my big blue eyes - I am soooo alert!

Sweet smile

Hitting the beach at Lake Michigan

On the way to Ludington, we met up with Andrea and Eli. I only wish we would have had more time to catch up and hang out. Next time!!

T's First Father's Day! :) Lila's shirt says "Daddy's Girl"

"Ohhhhhh... I LOVE my mozart music cube!!"

Lila at Four Months

Lila loves her baths - now she's big enough to use the big tub!

Happy happy girl!

Lila has seemed to have inherited her Mommy's thighs - it's now difficult to slide her legs into the bumbo. She thinks it's funny!

Cool shades for the hot summer sun!

Beautiful baby girl

At Nick's baseball game

Oh my goodness... my goal of blogging at least once a week once school got out has been shot to hell. It's hard to believe, but I've been out of school for almost a month! A MONTH!! It's been wonderful, to say the least. This is the first summer since 2001 that I have not taught summer school. Yes, it's only half day and decent cash, but there's this little girl here who needs her mama!!

Let's see, some of the things that have been going on this past month:

-Lila turned 4 months old on June 18!

-I actually had my classroom cleaned out and ready for summer the day after school was out - a new record!

-We had another baby shower - T's mom's friends got together to shower Lila with more presents. Fun fun!

-T and I had our first trip somewhere without Lila (farther than Men.ards in Ion.ia) - we went to Detroit to see a Tigers game. It actually got rained out and we only saw 4 innings, but it was a great time. Of course, we came back with a little pink Tigers hat for you-know-who... We have 2 more games that we have tickets for in August. Yay! :)

-June 25 we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. Four years!! It's so hard to believe that it's been that long. It's also crazy to think that we were building this house FIVE years ago. There's 6 months of my life that I never want to relive... We are living in this house until we go to the nursing home!!

-We took our annual trip to Hamlin Lake in Ludington - this was the longest amount of time that we have spent there - 10 days. It was wonderful to get away. T really needed the break from work - it's been crazy busy for him with all these federal stimulus programs going on. He said he didn't think about work once (although I caught him checking messages on his work phone a couple times). The first 4 days we were there, the weather was fantastic! 70's and sunny - perfect sunbathing weather! Then we had some cool/drizzly days. That was fine with my mom and I since we are perfectly happy hanging around the cottage. T and my dad golfed just about every day - even in the cool and drizzle. I must say, this year was definitely different than ever having Lila there. I usually read at least one magazine or novel per day while we're there. This year, I did manage to eek out one novel for the week. Lila had a great time - we went on lots of walks, went to the beach at Lake Michigan, went to Manistee, made lots of trips to the House of Flavors (yummy!!) and played and played!

-Lila is teething something terrible. Usually the mornings are pretty okay for her, but the afternoon/evening is another story. She'll be her normal happy self, then the next minute she's screaming. Poor baby girl... Ty.lenol is a wonderful thing.

-Once school got out, Lila stopped sleeping through the night most nights. Like clockwork, she woke up every night at 3am and was up for an hour, then went back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. I got reacquainted with my good friend Ti.vo to keep me awake.

-I took Lila to the doctor for her 4 month checkup/shot visit today. She now weighs 17 lbs. 13 oz. and is 25.5 in. 95th percentile! :) Whoohoo - in my class, 95% is an A! hee hee...

-In the parking lot, while loading Lila into the truck after her doctor's appt, I threw my back out. I wasn't totally surprised since I've been toting her around more since she's been more clingy with her teeth issues, however, I wasn't expecting it in the parking lot. I called my mom and she met us at our house since I could barely get myself in and out of the truck, let alone lift her. We went to my chiropractor and he worked some small miracles and I'm now moving and feeling much better. I go back in a couple days for more magic adjustments and a massage. yaaaaayyyyy...

-We're now truck-shopping, although we'd like to sell ours first. If anyone out there in bloggerville is interested in a 2004 Expedition in good shape - email me!

Our One Year Journey

One year ago today, I found out that I was pregnant. What a year it has been! :) On that Friday morning, T woke me up for school, just like every morning. I had been taking my temperature every morning to figure out my ovulation days for about 6 weeks, trying to see some kind of pattern. On this day, my temp had stayed high, so I knew that it was possible that I could be pregnant this first month that we had really tried. Somehow, I had in my head that it was going to take us 3 months and that if we started in May, then I would be pregnant by August, resulting in an April or May baby. When my temp stayed high, I decided to take the HPT just for kicks. I left the stick on the counter to 'process' while I got my clothes around and turned on the shower. I wasn't sure how long I was supposed to wait, so after a couple minutes I checked it. When I saw the word 'pregnant' on the stick - my immediate reaction was 'Holy Sh*t!" and should I take the other test in the box just to make sure? Shouldn't I be feeling sick and queasy and throwing up? I felt absolutely fine. Then I didn't know what to do - do I tell T now? Do I try to tell him in a cool way? He was out in the kitchen eating breakfast and I thought I had better tell him, since this was too big of a secret for me to keep to myself. I turned off the shower and came out with the stick and gave it to T. His immediate reaction was "How does this stick know that you're pregnant?" and "What's the error rate on those things?" Not exactly the first thought that I thought he would have. But, we had a nice moment and then I said I would call the doctor to get in soon. School would be out the next week and this day was the day of the talent show and was going to turn out to be the hottest day of the year. All day my head was totally spinning - was I really? should I eat that for lunch? how much wine have I had in the last 2 weeks? I don't have enough books yet to tell me what I need to be doing!! It was all that I could do to not tell everyone at school - but this was my first shot at being pregnant, I didn't know if it was really going to take, or what would happen. I can say with a lot of certainty that it was the most freaked out that I have ever been. A crazy mix of fear, anxiety, excitement, shock, joy, you name it, I was feeling it.

I know it's kind of gross, but I still have the stick. I was disappointed to see it about a week after and the word had faded. I should have taken a picture, I guess. Oh well, I can still see it as plain as day in my memory.

It's difficult for me to wrap my mind around this past year. It seems to have flown by in no time at all. I'm another year older, I've led another group of kids through 3rd grade, and now I'm a mom. That's still crazy to me- that someone will call me mom. Lila is awesome. We are soooo lucky to have such an angel. I cannot wait for summer to get here so I can play with my baby all day, every day! After how crappy I felt most of last summer, I'm anticipating a much more fun summer this year!

Memorial Day Weekend

With Daddy at the golf course (The Natural)


With Grandpa at the golf course (Black Bear)


In front of the irises at Grammy's house

At Mackinaw Outfitter's - holding my head up so well and taking in all the new sights!

Lila's first trip to Mackinaw! We didn't cross the bridge, so she is yet to be in the UP, but I'm sure that day will come soon! :)

Look at me! I just want to sit up and be a big girl! First time sitting in a restaurant high chair. She's still too little to be in there all by herself- she falls over sometimes, so she's still being held. But she loved it! :)

A beautiful day to lay in the grass at the golf course

Happy girl - always!

Look how well I can hold up my head! As soon as I can figure out how to get my legs working, I'll be crawling all over!

This past weekend we went up to Gaylord for a mini-vacation. It was sooo great to get away. We took my dad's new truck and watched movies there and back - fun time! :) The guys golfed a different course each day. My mom and Lila and I managed to do some damage downtown in the form of Vera, Brighton, and Life is Good - 3 of my most favorite things! :)

Lila had a shot-only visit to the doctor this week. She got 2 shots and was not very happy about it! I'm not sure who was worse - Lila or me!! I didn't cry though! She now weighs 15 pounds 8 ounces. No wonder I desperately need a visit to the chiropractor!

Lila is just awesome. There are lots of days where school is driving me crazy because it's the end of the year and our schedule is all messed up with different things and the kids are all hyped up and I just want to cry or scream. And I just think of how much longer I have until I get to come home to my happy, smiley, wonderful baby girl. She doesn't seem as much like a baby anymore as a miniture little person. She loves to sit up and stand up (both with assistance, of course!). This week she has started grabbing toys and shaking them around or throwing them. She wakes up happy every day - there is nothing better than walking over to the crib and when she sees you, she gives you a huge smile. I love it! She loves watching the dogs, they're so good with her and don't seem to mind too much that they don't get nearly the amount of attention that they used to get.

As I type this, there are 8 school days left. One real week. Yeehaw! Then many weeks of pure Lila fun! :) I can't wait!

3 Months!

Happy girl!


Lila in her excersaucer with her new favorite toy - the Mozart music box - she can make it work all by herself!



Sitting up straight and tall and shaking her cow for the camera

Lila and Daddy watching the Tigers!

Lila, Grammy, and Great-Grandma all bundled up ready for the MSU Art Fair

The whole family at Andrew's graduation party

Mother's Day - four generations of mothers and daughters :)

Well, based on my lack of posts, you can guess how crazy it's been around our house lately! Simply put - I went back to work. I have been trying my very very best to get as much done during the day as possible, but I have had to go in to school a couple weekends since I've been back. FIFTEEN more days of school - but who's counting?!? :)

In the past month Lila has grown a ton!! She is now in 3-6 month clothes, she holds her head up really well and loves to stand up. She's really "talking" now too. Although she does seem to be a bit camera shy - this morning T was getting her dressed and they were chatting up a storm and I got the video camera out and poof! No more talking. That's definitely something we need to work on! Speaking of video, we've been taking a lot more lately. She's actually doing things now - a lot more exciting than a baby laying around. She loves her baths. She's smiling all the time and has done some laughing. Her biggest smile and laugh she did for the ceiling fan in our room! Oh, how she loves the fans!

I had my first Mother's Day! :) It was a very nice day - presents and love and fun family times. :) The day before, we all had been gone to Portage for my cousin's graduation party and I think that Lila was still a little "off" from that day, which made Sunday a funky day for her. She constantly wanted to be held, nursed, and was kind of cranky. That seems to happen for her about one day a month - we can't expect her to be perfect EVERY day! Although, it would have been nice for her cranky day to not be on Mother's Day, but it didn't really matter. My grandma has been here so we've also been doing lots with her and it was special to have her with us on Mother's Day.

Let's see... what else... did I mention that there are only 15 more days of school? I am sooooo looking forward to it. Can you tell?!? For only the second year since I've been teaching, I am not teaching summer school. Lila and I are going to hang out all summer on the deck! We bought a new giant umbrella for out there and we're going to get a fun little pool and we're going to lounge in the pool all day. :) I can't wait!!

As always, check out the My Flickr link to oodles more Lila photos. :)

2 Months!

Today Lila is 2 months old! :) We celebrated by going to the mall and buying more clothes. There is absolutely no more room in her closet. I know in a few weeks, the clothes that she's currently wearing will be getting small, so we'll be making some room!

Ophthalmologist update: I took her to see a pediatric ophthalmologist last week and after over an hour of waiting in a room with many antsy, irritated children, we found out that Lila has a blocked tear duct. She showed me how to do some massages to her face. We've been doing that and it already seems to be helping the amount of gunk in her poor little eye.

Tuesday, the folks in T's office threw us a lunchtime shower. It was nice to finally meet some of these people that I've been hearing about for the last few years. On Wednesday, my substitute and class threw us a shower. It was adorable - they made Lila a bookcase and each student gave her a book. I don't have the pics uploaded yet, but I'll post some when I do.

Thursday was a big day around our house. I went back to work. It was not as horrible as I thought it was going to be - I didn't cry! My dad came to babysit Thursday and Friday. He did a fantastic job. He's also teaching my daughter to love watching golf. :) Anyway, my Thursday went very well - it's my art day (which means that I get 55 minutes of planning time - the best day all week) and I wasn't going to be at school Friday due to a meeting, so my substitute wrote me sub plans for the day! It was so cute. :) It was nice to be back in a routine, sort of. The day flew by - I was gone exactly 8 hours from home. It was great to start out with a 2 day week and one of them was a meeting day. :) We'll see how it goes with a real 5 day week this coming week - wish me luck! I'm off to school tomorrow to try to reacquaint myself with school. Hopefully I won't be gone all day. T thinks that he's going to clean the house and watch Lila while I'm gone. Good luck is what I told him. It's amazing how little you can get done in a day with an infant to entertain! :) And if the house doesn't get cleaned tomorrow? So what is what I say. When else will Lila be 2 months old and so fun to play with!?!

Tomorrow T's parents are coming to spend a few days with us. His mom will be watching Lila Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and staying over. It will be nice for Lila to get more acquainted with her Grandma and Grandpa R.! My dad will be taking every Friday and we will be rotating other relatives on Thursdays. Although, when I came home from school yesterday, my dad told me that he would do any Thursdays that we needed because he was "addicted" to hanging out with Lila. :) She's a sweetheart! :)

Lately, Lila has been getting very good at keeping her head up during tummy time. She loves laying on her back on the mat on the floor swinging her arms at the toys hanging overhead and watching her BFF - the ceiling fan! She also sits in her bumbo and likes to watch what we're doing in the kitchen. She's so alert and gets so focused on the things around her. Of course, we think she's incredibly smart! :)

7 Weeks and Spring Break

Saturday morning we boarded a plane for sunny Florida!





My bathing beauty with her Buddha belly

Hanging out at the beach

Finally a smile caught with the camera!

At the Easter display at the Volusia mall

Four generations of Spartans!

Cutie Patootie

We had a great week in Florida! The first couple days were a little cool for Florida's standards (60's), but the rest of the week was beautiful!

Some highlights from the trip:

-Lila meeting her Great-Grandma. She was so excited for us to get there - so were lots of her friends who came to visit.

-She rolled over by herself. She also discovered that she loves ceiling fans - luckily we have a few of them at home!

-Lila met the Easter bunny! We were shopping at the mall on one of the cool days and the Easter bunny was there. When we got there he was at lunch, so we had to wait for a while. I know I'm a mom now that I waited for almost 40 minutes for my 7 week old to visit the Easter bunny and I paid $20 for pictures of the big event (that was the cheapest package!!)
-We made two trips to the beach. The first few days weren't so great for beach weather, but the end of the week was great. The first day we took her, we went to one of my favorite restaurants on the beach, then down on the beach. She slept through the whole thing and stayed in the car. The second day, it wasn't very windy, so we put up the big umbrella and she enjoyed sprawling out on a towel, just looking at the ocean. I can't wait until she's big enough to play in the sand. The beach is one of my absolutely favorite places to be in the whole world - it will be so fun to share it with her!

-Lila was wonderful on the plane rides!! I fed her on the way up, and she either slept or just hung out playing with us the rest of the ride. Security in GR was very easy. Security in Sanford was not. We got there and the first guy we showed our boarding pass to said that one of us need to have a 'lap child' stamp on a board pass. Since we had the stroller and all our crap already there, my mom went down to get the stamp (although we didn't have one on the way down and everything was fine) and Lila and I went through. Apparently something in the diaper bag set off some kind of alarm, so we had to step aside for them to empty the entire thing and then do some tests on the diaper rash cream. A supervisor came over and had me take Lila out of the baby bjorn to run it through the x-ray machine, do a pat down on me and then she did a pat down on Lila!! Ugh!! I was not a happy person. I no longer had a happily sleeping baby. She was fine, but the whole thing just ticked me off. Because of these extra hoops we had to jump through, we ended up being one of the last ones on the plane - I'm so glad we paid extra for priority boarding. grrrr... Anyway, the time on the planes was fine. We had people both times who were sitting behind us, say "Oh my goodness, was that baby here the whole time? We never heard her!"

Lila also had her first Easter this past weekend. We went to T's parents' house for dinner, egg hunt, and spring birthdays. Lila has now met all of her cousins!

Today we have a busy day. I'm taking Lila to see a pediatric ophthalmologist this morning because of some gunk that keeps accumulating in one of her eyes. It's also very weepy, and the other one is just fine. Then we're going to T's office for a shower and luncheon. Lots of time on the road this morning - good thing she's a good traveler! :)

6 Weeks

Lila in her cute after-Baptism dress


With the awesome cake before we left for church


At baby massage class - we lasted through most of it before Lila got hungry

My attempt at artistic photography... with another Grammy-made hat!

I'm so cute!

This week was pretty eventful! Over the weekend, we had Lila's baptism. She was very good through all of it, until Pastor Larry took her and then she cried. Also, while we were standing up there, she farted and pooped through the whole thing. Luckily, her "emissions" didn't get picked up by the microphone - I think T and I were the only ones who heard her. :) Silly girl... After the service, we had brunch at our house. It was a nice little party for Miss Lila. It was also her first time meeting her aunt and uncle and 3 of her cousins. Also in attendance were all 4 grandparents and one set of great-grandparents.

Earlier in the week, Lila met her Grandma and Grandpa R. They have been in Alabama since the beginning of January. They were happy to finally see her!

Monday, I took Lila to the doctor. She checked out perfectly again. She now weighs 11lbs. 10oz. and is 22 3/4in. long. My growing girl!

Today, we went with Grandpa for Lila's first trip to East Lansing. We had to get shirts at the bookstore for this weekend's Final Four. Go Spartans!

On Saturday, my mom and I are flying to Florida for Spring Break and this year, Lila is coming too!! :) My grandma lives there and she absolutely can't wait for us all to get there. I can't wait to get somewhere warm and sunny! I have so had enough of winter!! I have been trying to pack something every day this week. It's amazing how long it takes, even though I'm usually home most of the day. Normally, to pack for Spring Break, I would do laundry Wednesday night, pack Thursday night, and then we would catch a flight Friday after school. This is definitely a new experience!

Oh, I also have to brag a little about my awesome sleeping beauty. Last night, she slept almost 8 hours!! :) It seems as though she has also inherited her mom's sleeping habits! Keep your fingers crossed that this continues!

Also on Sunday, after everyone left and we were all in our comfy-cozy clothes watching basketball, Lila gave us her first real smile! It was awesome! She hasn't done as big of one since then, but she has done some smaller, or one-sided smiles. So cute!

5 Weeks

These pics are from my last "photoshoot". This sweet little dress was actually mine. We have a lot of fun playing dress up with my little doll! :)

I thought this one actually had some sort of a smile - which made me happy. Then, I realized that she was flipping me off! Little stinker!!

Let's see, this week's activities included beginning an infant massage class. Lila was the youngest one there. She likes most of the things we do to her - also pretty relaxing for us! Some of the other moms in the class talked about their babies having colic and crying for 5 hours straight. Holy crap - I have no idea how they kept their sanity. Wow.

Last night Lila slept for over 7 hours! Then she ate, and went back to sleep for another 2! Whoohoo!! Mama felt very good today! :)

Today Lila met her other grandparents. They have been in Gulf Shores for the winter and they came here first before going home - they have been anxious to meet their newest grandchild (Lila is number 8 for them).

Last weekend my mom really messed up her back and since my dad was in Kentucky on a golf trip, she and Ellie came and moved in with us. It was nice to have her around - Lila got some extra Grammy time this week. :)

Sunday is Lila's christening. She will be wearing the gown that my great-grandma wore in 1890 and I wore in 1977. It's quite fragile and we had to have her baptism sooner rather than later so that it would still fit her. It fits her great and it should be a nice little party for my baby girl. :)

One Month Old

The 1 month birthday girl with her awesome hat Grammy made for her!


This face just melts my heart and look at those beautiful blue eyes! :)


Mommy's little Spartan!

One month! We have certainly learned a lot in these last 4 weeks:

-We have learned that sometimes we can go to bed at 10:30 and sometimes we can go to bed at 2am! I'm really getting to know late night tv as well as staying current on my tivo'ed shows! So far, her longest sleep stretch has been 6 hours - but usually it's around 4 or 5.

-Lila likes her car seat and seems to fall asleep soon after the car starts - just like her mama!

-She has been able to lift up her head quite well since she was born - now she's really good at it and can sit up (while being held) and support her own head for quite some time.

-We're still waiting on a real smile - not a sleeping one. Soon!

-She likes to sleep all swaddled up - but with her arms left out. She often flails her arms around at night and usually they end up in a 'touchdown' pose.

-We've learned that when she's hungry - she's HUNGRY! And she will show it by very loudly telling us so! She seems to also have inherited her mama's lungs. :)

-She loves to be held and cuddled and rocked. She also likes being carried around in the Baby Bjorn.

We can't wait to see what the next month will bring! :)

Three Weeks!

My baby girl is 3 weeks old today! How is that possible?!? It seems like just the other day we came home with her. Now we seem to be on some type of a schedule - usually she's in bed asleep around 10:30 or 11pm and will sleep until around 3 or 4am. Although as I type this, it's after 11pm already and she's WIDE awake - it may be a short night for Mama!

We seem to really be more onto this whole breastfeeding thing. In fact, she hasn't had any supplemental formula in like 4 days. Yay! She's latching on well and she's even nursing in a different position than she was initially which allows me to sit back and doesn't totally kill my back like the football hold was doing. :)

I know that she's going to smile ANY DAY! So many times she's been so close. On Monday she cried real tears! They weren't streaming down her face or anything, but her eyes were wet. Her hair is growing lots too! It's not like I'll be able to braid it soon or anything - but it's definitely noticeable! :) She loves being held and cuddled and rocked - it's total therapy! You feel like there's nothing that could possibly be wrong in the world when you're holding a sweet baby. She's getting better about letting me take a shower. I put her in a bouncy seat outside the shower so I can still talk to her. Yesterday she let me get about half way done before she started fussing and crying. The day before, every time I would go to get in, she'd start to scream (that was the day she started crying real tears). Needless to say, it took me about 20 minutes to actually get into the shower. The water ran for a very long time!!

Today, my dad called and said he was going to the store and wondered if I needed anything. I told him thanks, but T had just been grocery shopping a few days ago. Then he asked if I needed him to come out to watch Lila while I took a nap or got something done - I had a feeling that he needed to get a "Lila fix" but just didn't want to admit it. So I told him it would be great if he came out to watch her while I took a shower (spare her the trauma for a day!) and did a few things around the house. He said, "Great! I'll be right there!" and he was! :) Very cute.

I made my first outing alone with Lila on Monday. It took FOREVER to get us both around and ready and loaded into the truck. I', sure we'll get better, but I know that at least for now, there are no more quick trips into town.

I know you're all dying to read it, but just an FYI, I finally finished Lila's birth story - it's not particularly eloquent, but all the facts and feelings are there. It's down a couple posts since I started it a while ago and kept adding to it as I had time/energy.

Here are a few more pics for you!

We actually had some decent weather last week - this was her first trip down the road in the jogging stroller. I got the okay from my doctor to do some walking so off we went. Although, I think I overdid it a bit. Hopefully more signs of spring will be here soon so we can take more walks.

Lila and Grandpa watching the MSU game on Sunday. Here she is in her spartans bib. She has several more MSU outfits to wear just in time for March Madness! :)

She certainly is...